Larissa Sansour

A Space Exodus

A Space Exodus

In A Space Exodus, Larissa Sanour revives scenes from Stanley Kubrick’s cult film 2001 A Space Odyssey (1968), as well as some sequences from the first American lunar landings broadcast on the television (1969).

In the video, the symphonic poem Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Richard Strauss, used in the original soundtrack of Stanley Kubrick’s film, is remixed with Eastern overtones. The flag planted on the moon’s soil is that of the Palestinian people and the American astronaut Neil Armstrong’s famous phrase is altered to “one small step for the Palestinian, one giant leap for mankind”. The ironic, indeed humorous tone, suggesting pastiche and misappropriation is counterbalanced by the nostalgic aspect of the title A Space Exodus, implying the impossibility of the Palestinian people ever establishing their own state. Is the moon the only place left for a people in search of a homeland?

Exhibited In

Born in 1973 in Jerusalem to a Palestinian father and a Russian mother, Sansour studied Fine Arts in Copenhagen, where she currenlty lives and works.

Sansour borrows heavily from the language of film and pop culture. By approximating the nature, reality and complexity of life in Palestine and the Middle East to visual forms normally associated with entertainment and televised pastime, her grandiose and often humorous schemes clash with the gravity expected from works commeting on the region.